1. Technical Field
Exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure relate to an apparatus and method for managing a connection point with a data network in a wireless communication system.
2. Description of the Related Art
To meet the demand for wireless data traffic having increased since deployment of 4th generation (4G) communication systems, efforts have been made to develop an improved 5th generation (5G) or pre-5G communication system. Therefore, the 5G or pre-5G communication system is also called a ‘Beyond 4G Network’ or a ‘Post LTE System’.
The 5G communication system is considered to be implemented in higher frequency (mmWave) bands, e.g., 60 GHz bands, so as to accomplish higher data rates. To decrease propagation loss of the radio waves and increase the transmission distance, the beamforming, massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), Full Dimensional MIMO (FD-MIMO), array antenna, an analog beam forming, large scale antenna techniques are discussed in 5G communication systems.
In addition, in 5G communication systems, development for system network improvement is under way based on advanced small cells, cloud Radio Access Networks (RANs), ultra-dense networks, device-to-device (D2D) communication, wireless backhaul, moving network, cooperative communication, Coordinated Multi-Points (CoMP), reception-end interference cancellation and the like.
In the 5G system, Hybrid FSK and QAM Modulation (FQAM) and sliding window superposition coding (SWSC) as an advanced coding modulation (ACM), and filter bank multi carrier (FBMC), non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA), and sparse code multiple access (SCMA) as an advanced access technology have been developed.
A mobile core network or an Access Service Network (ASN) includes a plurality of network entities performing given functions, in order to provide a wireless access to mobile terminals. For example, a Packet data network-Gateway (P-GW) connects the core network to an external Packet Data Network (PDN) such as Internet.
The P-GW serves as an Internet Protocol (IP) anchor point for IP traffic which is forwarded via the P-GW. In recent years, technology for locally offloading some IP traffic without forwarding the IP traffic via a central P-GW has been suggested. An example of the technology for offloading traffic is a Selective IP Traffic Offload (SIPTO) mechanism.
The traffic by the SIPTO is processed through a local P-GW. The local P-GW functions as a P-GW for the IP traffic passing through the local P-GW, and thus the local P-GW serves as an anchor of the IP traffic. When the SIPTO is employed in a mobile network, a plurality of local P-GWs may be distributed throughout the network. The IP traffic is anchored at the local P-GW. Therefore, when the user moves after IP session initialization, a User Equipment (UE) cannot relocate the local P-GW to which the UE is attached. If the local P-GW is relocated, ongoing IP traffic may be terminated, which causes service disruption to the user. However, since an enhanced local P-GW exists for users having high mobility, maintaining the initial local P-GW may not always be the optimum choice.